All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Titus chapter 1. I titled the message this morning,
The Bishop of Our Souls. As we talked about earlier this
evening, we're going to have an ordination service where Brother
Eric Floyd is going to be ordained an elder here in our congregation.
Someone may wonder, well, why are we doing that? What's the
purpose of ordaining pastors and elders for the church? And
that's a fair question. And the Apostle Paul answers
it in verse five here of Titus one. He tells us that we ordain
pastors and elders so that the word is preached to feed the
sheep so they can grow in grace. He says in verse five, for this
cause left by the inquiry that thou should have set in order
the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as
I had appointed thee. Now this phrase that the set
in order, I left you there to set these things in order, means
to arrange additionally, to straighten up, straighten some things up
a little more perfectly. Now, what's that mean? God's people have already been
set straight. They've been set straight in
Christ. They know and believe the truth.
But God's people must be taught more fully. We grow in knowledge
in these things that we learn. God's people must be reminded
of the gospel constantly so that we grow in it. We looked at this
in Hebrews chapter 5 last week. We need to grow up and mature
so we can eat our meat. Eat our meat. So we can put into
practice in our everyday lives these doctrines which we believe.
And there's only one way that that's done. It's by pastors
and elders teaching and preaching the Word of God. God's people
grow in faith. We mature, we get stronger by
drinking in, by hearing the sincere milk of the word preached often.
And the word wanting that Paul uses here means something that's
been left undone. Now again, God's people are complete. Nothing's left undone. They're
complete in Christ. There's nothing else needs to
be done for their salvation. But they do still need to learn
more. They need to learn more of Christ.
They need to grow and mature spiritually. And there's no substitute
for the way that's done. It's done one way. It's by the
pastor and elders teaching and preaching the word of God. And
then Paul gives us the qualifications for pastors and elders. Now,
we're going to go through these things as they are in God's word,
but we're not here this morning or tonight to examine Eric on
any of these points. I know the places where That's
done, and I just am highly uncomfortable with that. And if you don't already
know a man, by the time you want to ordain him as an elder, there's
something wrong. We already know Eric. We know
the man. This congregation knows him.
We know his preaching. We know his doctrine. We know
his personality. So we're not making Eric an elder
here. As a body, all we're doing is
recognizing what God's already made him. What he's made him,
and I'm very thankful what he's made him to this congregations.
So these are the qualifications of a pastor elder. Beginning
in verse six, blameless. Paul said, if any, be blameless.
Now, you know, this doesn't mean the man has to be free from sin
because no man, none of us are free from sin. And a pastor and
an elder is not on a higher spiritual plane than other believers. Not
at all. What Paul means here is simply this, that a pastor
and elder should have a good reputation. He's blameless among
men. He's known out in the world as
a man of honesty and integrity. He's free from scandal. And I
tell you why this is so. He must be a man who people can
respect. You're not going to listen to
anybody preach you don't respect. He must be a man who's respected
so people listen to him. Then he says the husband of one
wife. Now this doesn't mean a pastor
must be married. The Apostle Paul wasn't married.
My personal opinion, I think it's a very good idea that he
be married. A wife can be a bigger help than
you can imagine. But it doesn't mean he has to
be married. It doesn't mean he could never
have been divorced. It simply means this. He can only have
one wife at a time. One wife at a time. Any man that
wants to have two wives at a time ain't wise enough to be a pastor.
He needs to have one wife at a time. And the reason Paul had
to say this here at this time, polygamy was very prevalent.
And that's forbidden in a pastor. Now, why is that? Well, it violates
the gospel that he preaches. It violates the picture of Christ
and his bride we have in Ephesians chapter five. It violates that
picture. You can't violate that picture and preach God's gospel.
And this is, again, it's kind of my own personal opinion, but
I'm confident that it's true. Not only should a pastor or an
elder just be the husband of one wife, He ought to be a good
one. He ought to be a good husband. I would say he must be a good
husband. If a man's going to minister
to the bride of Christ, he ought to know first how to treat his
own wife. Is that so? He ought to know how to take
care of and love his own wife, cherish his own wife before he
tries to do anything for God's bride. And like I said, now we're
not examining Eric on these matters. But I can tell by the way Abby
looks at him. Yeah, the man's a good husband.
You can fake something you might say, but you can't fake that
love. And that's the way it ought to be. A man ought to be a good
husband. Otherwise, how can he take care of God's bride? Then
he says here, having faithful children, not accused of riot
or unruly. Now again, this doesn't mean
that the man's children must be believers. But it does mean
this. It means that a man's going to
be an elder. He is in his home and those people that are under
his sphere of influence, he's taught his children well. He's
taught them the scriptures. He's had them here in the services
faithfully so that they're taught the scriptures. He's taught them
how to obey him and how to conduct themselves when they're out in
public, you know, away from him. And just like a wife, You know,
how can a man take care of and minister to God's children if
he doesn't know how to take care of his own children? It just
makes sense, doesn't it? And again, we're certainly not
going to put Isaac and Brady under the microscope here either.
But those are fine young men. They qualify as faithful children. They're a few people I hold as
high of esteem. And that's because you've got
a good mama and a good daddy. And that's the way it ought to
be. You know, being a father is very good training ground
for being an elder in God's church because it takes much the same
patience, much the same commitment to long-term teaching. It takes
the same commitment to faithfulness, to do both, to be a good father
and to be an elder in God's church. Look back at first Timothy, just
a couple of pages here. First Timothy chapter three. This is what Paul tells us. 1
Timothy 3 verse 4. One that rules well his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man
know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care
of the church of God? And I love Henry's quote on this. He said, no man can be what the
term pastor involves if he's not in his own home, what the
term father. because they're much the same
skill set. Then verse seven, he says, for
a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God. Now, Paul
uses the word bishop here. He means the same thing as a
pastor or an elder. And you know, by the time that
the church comes to recognize a man as an elder, he'd been
doing the job of an elder a long time before the church, you know,
ordains him, recognizes him. When the church calls a man to
be an elder, they already know that he's faithful to serve the
church. They already know his doctrine,
that his doctrine is blameless. You can't poke holes in his doctrine
because he's faithful to preach one message, to preach Christ.
You can't poke holes in that. A man must be faithful to always
and only preach Christ as the steward of God, taking care of
the ministry that God's given him. Then he says here, not self-willed. Now a man's going to be a pastor,
an elder. Now he's got to have a backbone of iron, steel. He cannot compromise the gospel. He cannot compromise that at
all. But at the same time, while he's
got a backbone of steel, he also is not a stubborn, obstinate
man. His general character is not
being stubborn and obstinate. He doesn't seek to do things
according to His will and for His glory and His benefit. He's
faithful to seek to do things according to God's will, for
God's glory, for the benefit of God's church. Then he says,
not soon angry. God's pastor, his elders, a man
who's slow to wrath. He got a temper, but he's slow
to wrath because he knows this. You know, you could just be angry
and go off half cocked, but What have you accomplished? Not one
thing. Because the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. He's slow to act out in wrath. Instead, he's patient with people
and he has compassion on their weaknesses and their ignorance
of the things that might make someone mad. He understands them. They got the same weaknesses.
He's got the same ignorance. So what's his purpose? His purpose
in the church is to patiently teach them, to teach them the
scriptures and to pray for them. Here's another quote from Henry.
An angry man is not fit to teach others or leave the church. That's
just so, he's not fit. He's not soon angry, he's slow
to wrath. Then he says, you're not given to whine. Now, you
know this, there is absolutely nothing wrong drinking a glass
of wine, drinking alcohol of any kind. There's nothing wrong
with that. Sin's not in the bottle. Sin's in the heart. It's in us. It's in our nature. But a pastor
or elder is very careful in the use of these things, to use them
in moderation, to not use wine or alcohol to excess. Because
you use that to excess, it'll make a man act like a fool. I
mean, you just, you drink wine to excess and yeah, you're at
a party or you're at a gathering and you think it's funny, you
know, you're acting, acting a fool. But I want to tell you what,
you keep this in mind. People will see that and they're going
to lose respect for you and not listen to you when you're talking
about serious matters. That's why he doesn't use these
things to excess. It's no matter where he's at, you got to be
aware you're the steward of God. You've taken care of Christ's
pride. This is not a, not a striker. God's elder, God's pastor is
not a striker with his hands or his tongue. God's pastors
are not bullies. They're not harsh. They're not
mean with people. They're plain spoken, but not
harsh, not mean. They're gentle and considerate.
They're not looking for a fight all the time. I know people that
are all the time looking for a fight. They just, I mean, there's
peace. They just can't be happy with
it. They got to cause a fight to entertain themselves. There's
something wrong with that. God's preacher, he's willing
and he's able to contend for the truth. You're not going to
compromise this. He's able to. It says here in verse 11, you
got to do this, whose mouths must be stopped. Now you can't
let these things go. He's willing and able to contend
for the truth, but he enjoys peace and harmony a whole lot
more in a fierce battle. You're not going looking for
it. He's seeking peace and pursuing all the while, never shying away
from a battle for the truth because God's church must be protected
from error. Then he says, not given to filthy
lucre. Now being given over to filthy
lucre is just being greedy and covetous. It's just like an adage. You've got to have more of it.
Now covetousness and greed are contrary to grace. Contrary to
it. If God's been gracious to you,
what more do you want? What else can you covet? If God's
been gracious to your soul and every believer, desires to avoid
just being greedy. But that's especially true of
a pastor and an elder. There's just nothing worse than
a greedy preacher. Greed is deadly to the preaching
of the gospel. A greedy man will compromise.
A greedy man will change his message in order to get more. Look at verse 11. Paul says,
whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses, teaching
things which they ought not." Now, why do they do that? For
filthy lucrecy. They're trying to get from people.
They change their message, teaching things that they ought not, and
lead whole houses away from Christ. Oh, he cannot be a greedy man. He's determined to tell the truth,
no matter what cost him. The truth is the truth. We must
point men and women, sinners, to Christ. Then he says, a lover
of hospitality. Henry told me one time, he said,
a man cannot be a pastor who does not love people. We're talking
about a specific man going to a place to be the pastor. And
Henry said, I know he'll be successful there. He loves people. He has
to love people. Now, hospitality, it does include
opening your home to people. It includes, you know, planning
times of fellowship and things. But I'll tell you what mostly
it is. It's just the root of it. Hospitality is opening your
heart to people. Because you care about them.
You just care about them. And that's important in a preacher.
Because people will listen to a man preach if they really believe
he's got my best interest at heart. He cares about me. He
cares about my best interest. He cares about my soul. He cares. Is that right? You listen to
a man like that, won't you? He's got to be a lover of hospitality. And then a lover of good men
ties right in with that. He loves and enjoys good things. He enjoys the company of God's
people. They're good people. They've
been made good in Christ. And he loves good meaning. He loves being around with people
like that. It shows that this thing in his
heart is sincere. This is who he really loves.
That's not just lip service, but he lives it. In sober, and
at the end of the verse, temperate. And they mean close to the same
thing, sober. The word means self-controlled.
Self-controlled. He knows how to govern himself.
He knows how to govern his emotions. He knows how to govern his life,
lead his home. He's controlled by love for Christ,
by love for the gospel, by love for people, by gratitude for
God's grace, not the law. You know, if he's got to have
the law to control himself, well, you know what he's going to do
when he gets in the pulpit? He's going to hold other people's
feet to the fire, to the fire of the law. Well, that's no good.
There's no salvation there. There's no benefit there. So
he must be controlled by love for Christ. Love of God's grace,
thankfulness for God's grace. If he loves that, that's what
he'll preach. He'll preach Christ. He'll preach
God's grace, mercy in Christ Jesus. He said, Paul says here,
just. He's honest and he's fair in
his dealings with people and holy. Now just like blameless,
you know this doesn't mean sinless. And actually the word here, holy,
it's a word that has to do with toward men. Not toward God, but
toward men. So this, God's elder, he's devout. He's devout toward God, and he's
innocent toward men. He's not gonna cheat people to
get something, not dishonest with people. He deals honestly
with people. Now, up to this point, every
one of these qualifications, ought to be true by every believer,
shouldn't they? They ought to be true about every
one of us. So if you hadn't really thought
of that yet, go back and look at these things in light of,
this is ought to be my qualification. This ought to describe me if
I believe Christ, if I believe His grace, if I look to Him,
trust Him, these things ought to be true about me. And like
I told you, I've seen places where, boy, they want to examine
a man. You know, I'm just examining before they ordain. Well, if
you want to really examine somebody, you go ahead and examine. Examine
your own self on these things. These ought to be true of all
of us. But here's the area that distinguishes an elder. Paul
called it in 1 Timothy, he called it apt to teach. In verse 9 he
says, holding fast the faithful word as it has been taught. Holding these things fast. God's
pastors and elders, they hold fast, they adhere to the Word
of God. They wouldn't preach anything
else. They adhere to the Word of God. And God's gifted them
to preach the Word, to teach it. You know, an elder has the
ability to declare the person and work of Christ from God's
Word because he adheres to it, he reads it, he loves it. And
James says here, as he has been taught. That tells us something,
as he has been taught. It means that an elder has been
around long enough to learn something. You learn something. Before you
can teach somebody else, you've got to learn something first
too, don't you? You teachers, you didn't just get out of high
school and start going to teach, did you? No, you went to school.
Went to learn some things so you could come back and teach.
The same thing is true with God's elders. He's been around long
enough to learn something. Paul told Timothy he's not a
novice. He'd been here a while. Now an elder, he's had time to
learn the scriptures, but I'll tell you something else he's
had time to learn. He's had time to learn some humility. That
just takes time. There's no shortcut for learning
that. God just has to take the starch out of a man before he
can ever really preach the gospel and be useful to God's people.
He's got to take the starch out of them. God sent Moses to the
backside of a mountain for 40 years to take the starch out
of him. I mean, boy, when Moses left
Egypt, he's ready to conquer all Egypt with his own two fists,
isn't he? After 40 years on the backside
of that mountain, and the Lord came to him, Moses didn't jump
and say, yeah, I'll go down there. He said, Lord, I can't even speak.
Don't send me, send somebody else. That's the man God used. Gotta take the starch out of
him. And people appreciate that. You understand, you need a humble
man preaching the gospel to you, that points you to Christ. One
of the best definitions of preaching I've ever heard, and it covers
the doctrine you'd use, it covers the attitude in which you'd preach.
Preaching is one beggar telling another beggar where he found
bread. You gotta be a humble man. Just go to Christ. Just go to Christ. Just go to
Christ. So that's his message. And here's his goal that the
rest of verse nine, that he may be able by sound doctrine, both
to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. Now, this is the
desire of God's pastor and God's elder. This is his desire is
to lead sinners to Christ. That's his desire. That's his
all. That's his heart's desire. His desire is not to get results
at any cost. He's not going to use psychology
and emotion and get people to make a decision and say, look
what great harvest we've had. He's not trying to trick people
into making a profession. That's not going to do them any
good. He cares about their soul. He
wants this thing to be genuine. He wants to be able, by God's
grace, to lead sinners to Christ. And there's only one way you
can do that. It's by sound doctrine, by doctrine straight from God's
word, because that's the only means the Holy Spirit will use
to convince the lost of their need and bring them to Christ.
It's the only means, the preaching of God's word. Now, that's the
qualifications he gives us here, and they're the same in other
places where he talks about them. And we can recognize it's a blessing
when God gives us men like that. It's a blessing for us. God's
gifted them and called them to the work of the ministry and
we're thankful. But now listen, let's be sure
the focus is not on those men. If we start that, we're going
to get this separation of clergy, laity, and that's not good for
anybody. Let's be sure that the focus
is on Christ whom we preach. Whom we preach and by God's grace,
who we believe. Now, we're thankful for undershepherds,
aren't we? The church has to have them.
We're thankful for undershepherds. But look at 1 Peter chapter 5.
Here's what we need. We need Christ. He's the chief shepherd. Yes,
we have undershepherds. We're thankful for them. But
our hope, our faith, our confidence is in Christ, the chief shepherd.
1 Peter chapter 5, verse 1. The elders which are among you,
I exhort. who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed,
feed the flock of God which is among you, taking oversight thereof,
not by constraint, but willingly, not for a filthy lucre, but of
a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory, that fadeth not away."
That's who we're looking for, the chief shepherd. He's the
one who saved our souls. He's the one we're waiting on
Him to appear. Then look at 1 Peter chapter
2. We're thankful for pastors and elders. These men that the
apostle called bishops. But here's the one we trust.
Here's the one we believe. Christ, the bishop of our souls. 1 Peter 2 verse 24. to his own self, bear our sins
in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should
live under righteousness by whose stripes you are healed. For ye
were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd
and bishop of our souls. The bishop of our souls, he's
the one who saved our souls. He's the one who found us when
we were lost and brought us back. He's the one who by his sacrifice
put our sin away, cleansed our soul from all sin. He's the one
that we believe. He's the one that we preach.
He's the Bishop of our souls. And what I want us to do now,
this is the blessing. Let's go back and look how Christ
our Savior is supremely qualified to be the Bishop of our souls.
So that we'll trust him. First, these elders are appointed,
they're ordained. Christ our Savior was appointed
to the office. appointed to be the Savior by
the Father Himself. Now the Apostle Paul left Titus
in Crete to ordain elders in every city. And that's good.
But listen, that's just a man appointing men to a temporary
office, isn't it? The Father appointed the Lord
Jesus Christ, His Son, to be the eternal Bishop of our souls. I reckon that means we can trust
Him, don't you? The Father is the one who first trusted Him.
I reckon we can too. Trust Him. Go to Him. Then blameless. Verse 6 in our text, blameless.
Here's one who is blameless. Here's one who is sinless. The
Lord Jesus Christ. The only sinless man to ever
live. Now that's not just good doctrine. It is good doctrine,
but it's not just good doctrine. That's our salvation. This is
so important. His sinlessness is our salvation. Because righteousness is not
a thing. Righteousness is a person. Christ is our righteousness.
He's the Lord, our righteousness. He is our righteous standing
before God because he is sinless. He is blameless. He's the husband
of one wife. Lord Jesus Christ is the faithful
husband to his bride. He's not. He didn't come to this
earth offering himself to as many people as might decide to
accept it and say, oh, look how loving that is. That's human
logic, but that's not what Christ came to do. You ladies, how would
you like it if your husband did that? Oh, honey, I love you,
but I'm going to offer my love to as many other women as might
decide to. That's not going to fly, is it? Christ our Savior
didn't do that either. He's the faithful husband of
one bride. And oh, he loves her. Oh, he
loves her. He loved her so much. He came
and became a servant to provide her everything that she needs. He came. His love is perfect. It's infinite. He loved her so
much, he sacrificed himself. Oh, what a husband. He loves
his bride. His love is perfect. And he'll
never cast her out. Never. She'll never get from
him a bill of divorce. And he'll never die and leave
her a widow. And she'll never die and leave
him. He'll always provide for her
perfectly. He'll provide for her every need,
spiritual, emotional, physical. Oh, what a husband. He's a faithful
husband of one wife. Now you run to him. Fall in love
with him and run to him. And then having faithful children.
God has faithful children. His children are faithful. Now,
that being said, none of us want to be examined too closely on
our faithfulness, do we? It's not what it should be. Our
faithfulness is not what it should be. And it's not what our Father
deserves. But this is also true. God's people are faithful. They're
faithful because God the Holy Spirit has given them faith in
Christ. In this truth, they're not always as faithful as they
should be to serve God by serving His people. But they're faithful. They can't not believe on Christ. They can't stop believing on
Him. God's made them faithful to Him.
Oh, what a Father we are. See, the focus of this is not
on the children, is it? Now look to Him, trust Him, follow
Him, and not accused of riot or unruly. Now this is done perfectly
in God's children. We can't apply that to the pastor,
elders' children, but you can to God's children. They cannot
be accused of riot or unruly because Christ has made them
perfect. They can't be accused of any
sin. His blood's made them perfect.
See, the focus is not on the children and how blameless they
are, how little they've rotten enough. The focus is on the Savior
who made them righteous, who made them perfect, sinless. Then
blameless as the steward of God. Oh, I'm thankful for this one. Christ came as the servant of
his father. And he was blameless as the steward,
the servant of his father. He did the job that he was sent
to do perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. He was
so blameless, even Pilate had to say, I find no fault in it. Even Pilate had to say that.
So that the world would have no excuse not to know the sinless
sacrifice died to put away the sin of his people. He was blameless
as the steward of God. God gave him a people to save. And he said, Father, I'll save
him. I'll redeem him. I'll make him
righteous. And he came and did it. Did it perfectly. Now you
can trust him. You can rest in him. He's the
perfect Savior. He did not self-willed. Our Lord
Jesus, all throughout his earthly ministry, did he make this clear?
He came to do his Father's will. Remember what he said? What was
the Father's will? It's the redemption of his people
through the sacrifice of Christ himself. And our savior made
it clear. I came to do my father's will,
not my own will, but the will of him which sent me. He willingly
humiliated himself to appear in the likeness of our flesh.
He limited himself to the weakness of our flesh, how he humiliated
himself, how far he came down to appear in our flesh. So He
could come where we are, to the bottom of the barrel, to redeem
us, to reach way down where we are and come get us. That's bad
enough. When it came time for the sacrifice
to be offered, when it came time for Him to endure even greater
humiliation, when it came time for Him to endure great pain,
when it came time for the Holy Son of God to endure the unspeakable
agony of being made sin for his people. To suffer separation
from his Father. Greater suffering as no man ever
known. He knew full well that's what
he was going to have to suffer to do his Father's will. To redeem
his people from their sin. So he prayed. Father, not my
will. Thy will be done. And it was. He fully redeemed His people
from their sin. Aren't you thankful He wasn't
self-willed? But He had accomplished the will of His Father and the
redemption of His people. Then not soon angry. I think
this gives us a real good indication of what not soon angry is. The Lord has a holy anger against
sin, doesn't He? Anger. But how patient is He
with sinners? Why is he so patient? And Peter
said, you account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation. He's not soon angry. He longs
suffering with his people. Not given to wine. Now our Lord
was accused of being a wine beaver, wasn't he? But you know, he was
always in control. I mean, he was in control of
himself. He was always in control of the situation because he's
God. Of course he's sovereign. Of
course he's in control of everyone. But you know, when I thought
of this, when our Savior was suffering on the cross, they
offered Him something, I don't know if it was wine or whatever
it was that they offered Him. The purpose of it was to dull
the pain. They would give that to a person being crucified,
to dull their senses and dull their pain. You know, He refused
it. Why He refused it? So that we'd
all know He fully suffered for the sins of His people. If He
suffered for your sins, There's no suffering left. He suffered
it all. He endured it all. And then no
striker. And you think who our Savior
is? He's the Son of God. He is the
glory of heaven. Yet he was meek and mild. What?
Meek and mild. He never looked for a fight.
Now, the Pharisees saw a man. who was a strong defender of
the truth. He was a strong defender of his
father's house. He'd break a whip and drove them
out. One man drove out all of those people in his holy anger. What a sight! But he's no striker. When it came time to rebuke his
people. Oh, how tender, how gentle he
is with his people. Let us not need more than this. What a gentle rebuke. And that's
all it took, wasn't it? He came walking one day on the water
in the storm. His disciples, they were so afraid. They thought they saw a ghost.
Old evil man. Just so gentle. And that's the
only kind of rebukes, just kind, gentle rebukes the sheep need.
That's our savior. That's our shepherd. He's no
striker. You can come to Him. You don't have to come to Him
afraid He's going to beat you. He's no striker. Just come to
Him and lay out your need to Him. He's no striker. He's gentle. He's not soon angry. Not given
to filthy lucre. The Lord Jesus was a poor man.
Had no place to lay His head. He was homeless. Yet He could
not be swayed. Satan offered him the whole world,
all the riches of the world, because nothing could turn him
away from suffering everything that had to be suffered, from
his humiliation, being poor and homeless and downtrodden, having
no place to lay his head, all the way to the suffering of the
cross. Nothing could sway him from this truth, salvation, through
his obedience to the law, in our place, being poor and homeless
and destitute, just like we are spiritually, and through the
suffering, His suffering as our sacrifice. Nothing could turn
Him from it. Nothing. The lover of hospitality. Our
Lord Jesus Christ is truly hospitable. This man receives sinners and
eats with them. We might want to keep our distance.
We like to think we're hospitable, wouldn't we? We probably keep
sinners, public, in our arms. We probably keep them in our
arms. This man is a lover of hospitality. He receives sinners,
and eats with them. Are you a sinner? Huh? Are you
a sinner? What's stopping you from coming
to me? This man receives sinners, and he loves his people. He loves
hospitality. If he said, well, I see just
two or three of them got together in my name. I'm a lover of hospitality. I'll be right there in mid stone. And he's a lover of good men.
Our savior, he's the lover of good men. He only loves good
men, good women only. Yet he also loves sinners. How can that be? It's because
of who he is. Christ our bishop. makes his
people who were born in sin, he makes them to be holy. He
makes them to be what he loves and he loves them to the end. Then he's just. The Lord Jesus
is just. He obeyed the law perfectly. But now listen, this is more
than just good doctrine to say the Lord Jesus was sinless. The
bishop of our souls is just. That enables him, his pure, sinless
blood, enables him to justify his people by shedding his blood
for their sins. His perfect obedience enables
him to justify the ungodly. Now, are you ungodly? By nature,
are you ungodly? Are you full of sin? Then what's
stopping you from coming to the just one? He justifies sinners. And then he's holy. He's so holy,
His name is the Holy One. And this Holy One makes His people
holy by giving them a holy nature in the new birth. And then verse
nine, holding fast the faithful word as He hath been taught.
Christ, the Bishop of our souls was the preacher, the Prince
of preachers. He said one day, we preach that
we do know. But what is it He knows? Everything. He knows everything of the gospel
because he is the gospel. Well, who better to preach it
than him? Huh? Who better to preach it than the one who is
the gospel? And I'll tell you when we'll be saved. When we
hear the preacher speak to the people. He speaks to the hearts
of his people. Gives them life. He speaks to
the heart of his people to comfort their hearts. He speaks to them
to cause them to grow in grace. Do you need salvation? Do you
need comfort? Do you need your heart to be
established? Make it your business, dear infant, because that's where
he speaks to the hearts of his people. And then here's the pastor
and elder's goal, end of verse nine, that he may be able by
sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. In verse 11, he says, whose mouths
must be stopped. Now Christ, in the power of his
grace, he stops the mouths of the wicked. But in grace, His
people, He stops their mouths. He stops their wicked mouth.
He stops them bragging on themselves. He stops them talking about all
that they've done for Jesus. He stops their mouth. But He
doesn't end there. He puts a new song in their mouth.
He puts that song in their heart and it's going to come out the
mouth. It's a song of praise for His mercy and His grace and
His love and His sacrifice for His people. You see, this is
the one that will He is our message. He is where all of our hope is
found. All of our salvation is found in Him. And we're thankful
for the men who preach Him, absolutely. But what we're thankful for,
what makes our hearts burst with joy, is we're thankful for Him
who loved us and washed us from our sin in His own blood. And
every time you find a faithful pastor or elder, you're going
to find that man preaching Him. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this blessed portion of your scripture. We thank you for the
men that you've given to us to be the pastors and elders and
teachers of your church. But oh, how we thank you for
our Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for the chief
shepherd. How we thank you for the bishop
of our souls. How we thank you for Christ who
is the messenger and is the message, who redeems his people from all
their sin, who comes and gives them life and faith. Father,
I pray that this morning you'd apply your word to our hearts
that you would cause us, each heart here, to cause us to leave
here this morning looking to, believing in, and resting in
Christ, casting all of our soul, all the salvation of our soul
on Christ, the Bishop of our souls. It's in his precious name
that we pray and give thanks. All right, now, as I said earlier,
I hope you all come back this evening at six o'clock. And I
forgot to make this announcement. We will, the men will meet in
the study, so Wayne, if you can get us a reader. And I give you
a commercial on this. You know, you don't have to go
in there just by special invitation. We start about quarter till,
ten till, any old man can, whatever age, can come in. I think it
would be helpful to you. It would be a blessing to us.
And, you know, we, if you don't want to read, Wayne won't make
you, but we read the scripture and pray. Anything needs to be
discussed or whatever, that's always where I do it first. So,
open invitation.